Some Star Wars Fans Are Angry at the Please Touch Museum

On August 23rd, the Please Touch Museum is holding a Star Wars event. Today, the museum noted on its Facebook page that the Star Wars event is for families only.

Laura Frank, a spokeswoman for the Please Touch, noted this was a decision made by the museum in order to allow as many children as possible access to the Star Wars event. The museum is expecting 5,000-6,000 people to attend its Star Wars Day, and decided to clarify that this event was for children. All the programming planned that day is for kids.

“We don’t have any adult programming planned that day,” Frank says. “It started getting spread all over the place. I think people thought it was some kind of comic-con, and we just wanted to clarify.”

That clarification did not sit well with many people on the event’s Facebook page. A sampling of the comments (and by sampling, we mean “ones picked specifically for their entertainment value”):

• Well this is some shit. The word “inconvenience” is an understatement. Thanks a lot!I’m sorry but every Star Wars event I’ve been to has been geared towards kids. What about the adults that love it as well? Can we have a Wine and Star Wars night for adults or something?
• Anybody thinking it’s creepy for adults to want to go to a museum where you can touch things is an absolute moron. Learning knows no age. Also, Star Wars! PTM, you have given in to fear. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate… leads to suffering.”
• It’s obviously popular, from a marketing standpoint they are being dumb. Just hold an after hours second session.
• Boycotting then. I am a city employee with fully vetted background checks and I resent the implication that adults wishing to examine museum displays and events hearkening back to our childhoods in the 70s is prejudicial, insulting, and SHITTY.
• Personally, I have never been to this museum, though many have tried to get me to go, this was the first thing that sounded too good to turn down, yet now that there are such conditions imposed after the fact, I have declined the invitation based on principle.
• Again, why do children need to be protected from adults at a museum? Smithsonian seems to manage ok. If the event is so popular, just add more days. Exclusion is bullshit.
• Age discrimination is illegal, no?
• Lame. And a form of discrimination. You’ve just guaranteed you’ll never see my business.
• Dick move Please Touch Museum.
• Honestly, most of us would probably rather they not be there so we can enjoy the exhibit without your undisciplined hooligans running wild because you are too busy worrying about the person who might have looked at your kid and smiled.

It appears that many of these angry commenters do not realize the Please Touch Museum is a museum for children, but that doesn’t make these comments any less amusing.

Solo adults are not always banned from the Please Touch Museum; Frank says that when an adult guest (or other solo adult, such as a worker) is in the building the staff is simply notified of that person’s presence as a precaution. She also says not everyone is as angry as those Facebook commenters (which only make up a small percentage of the 200+ comments on the Please Touch Museum’s post).

“There were some people who were shocked and a little bit outraged,” Frank says. “But for the most part, people have been very supportive and understanding. And many people have messaged us thanking us that everyone can be there with their families.”

The Star Wars Day is a regular ticketed event at the museum on Saturday the 23rd. According to the museum, it features “visits from the beloved (and despised) characters of the 501st Legion Garrison Carida as well as space and Star Wars themed activities, programming and collections cases.”